


The Most Precious Soul

by honeybunchesofgoats



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Pagan Gods, Reincarnation, ancient gods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-05-29 12:01:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6373909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeybunchesofgoats/pseuds/honeybunchesofgoats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ai had always been alone until one evening he was found.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *starts another multi chapter fic when my other ones are left to rot forever in the un-updated graveyard*

Late evening was Ai's favorite time of the day.  At this hour, everything was calm; people were settled down after having their last meal of the day, and the setting sun cast the sky in an arrange of pastels.  It was the purgatory between when daytime activity ceased and nocturnal life had yet to awaken.  Even the waves seemed gentle along the shoreline, no spray of foam or booming crashes that were typical of the ocean during the day.  It felt surreal, it felt as if Ai could have a little world all to himself where no one could reach him.  It felt safe.

A slight breeze ruffled Ai's hair as he looked out into the water from where he sat on a rock.  Summer was ending quickly and with that it so was his freedom.  No longer would he be able to enjoy his solitude in the earth's warmth on the outskirts of the beach near his house.  Soon he would have to return to school where he was surrounded by people who were better than him, who were happier than him, who were stronger than him.  He would have to be home for more than just to sleep.  School work, clubs, even preparing meals were going to be weighing down on his shoulders.

Ai sighed.  He wasn't _good_ at anything, not that he ever had the confidence to try and prove himself wrong.  No one had ever encouraged him to, so the thought to do so never crossed his mind.  He preferred to be small, to go unnoticed.  Slipping under the radar of your peers, teachers, and parents was a lot easier than the alternative.  Ai wasn't sure what he would do if he received any amount of attention or pressure.  Being alone and empty was what he always known, he didn't want to change that now.

Down the beach two people walked along the sand, too far away for Ai to pick up on their voices but every now and again their laughter would reach his ears.  He sighed again.  He wanted to wonder what it was like to have goals, dreams, friends.  A proper family.  But he never indulged in the thoughts.  It only ever made the emptiness yawn wider inside of him.  A hollow, sinking stretch of loneliness and purposelessness that was at the core of his soul.  If anyone were to ask, Ai would admit he felt lost, like he wasn't supposed to have this life.  But no one ever asked, so Ai never dwelled on it.  It was what it was, and time went on.

Seagull cries and distant sounds from the city behind his small town lulled him into a relaxed state.  These few hours were sacred to Ai, almost nostalgic in a sense, although Ai couldn't place what he was nostalgic about.  In these few hours of every day he could come here and disappear, hide from the world in plain sight.  He knew he couldn't escape himself or his thoughts, but this was the closest he's ever come to.   Closing his eyes, Ai leaned back on his hands and melted into the world around him.

Peaceful.  It was peaceful.

Until it wasn't.

Voices carried across the beach, more than two, growing in volume.  Ai cracked an eye to see a small group of people gathering along the shore.  He sat up, interested now, and tilted his head trying to listen.  No luck, he couldn't make out any words.  Accepting that his moment to himself was over, he stood up and that's when he noticed.  The water.  The water was moving downwards as if it were being drained, leaving the rock he was sitting on dark and wet where it was once submerged.  The waves were gone and the water was trembling as it crept backwards, revealing more rocks as it traveled.  He furrowed his brow and hopped off into the wet sand, making his way quickly over to the growing crowd of onlookers.

"The water is receding!"

"What's happening?"

"Look at that!  I've never seen anything like it!"

"Should... Should we be doing something?"

"Why is the water getting sucked into the ocean?"

"What do we do?"

An uneasy feeling settled over Ai, a foreboding sense telling him to run, to get away.  _Get somewhere safe_.  He was about to do just that when the ground beneath him shook and he lost his footing and fell on his bottom, gritting his teeth and clutching fistfuls of sand.  The sky darkened quicker than Ai had ever witnessed during any storm and soon people were screaming and scrambling panicked.  He tried to get up, to get off the beach but a gust of strong wind blew sand in his face.  He covered his eyes, squinting through his fingers and managed to get to his knees.  A low vibration filled the air, so slight at first Ai couldn't pick up on it.  But soon enough he not only heard it, he felt it; a crescendo of thunder and water churning, a rumble growing to deafening volumes.  Everything was drowned out, the wind, the screaming, the sound of Ai's own heartbeat.  All he could hear and feel was the intense roar, shaking his body to the core.  He clamped his hands over his ears but to no avail, the sound was inside him, tearing into him, ripping him apart.

This was it.  His body wouldn't be able to handle the abuse anymore.  Tears spilled down his face only to be whipped away.  Lightning flashed across the sky, crawling in branch like patterns. The beach was illuminated for a split second, but that was all Ai needed to catch a glimpse of the dark mountain growing up and up and up out of the ocean.  Ai's first immediate thought was _tsunami_ but his conscience didn't want to accept that reality.  As his brain and heart battled against each other over his oncoming demise, more lightning cracked, giving Ai a shuttered, strobe-preview of his last moments.

_Flash._

The form was taller, consuming the sky.

_Flash._

Bodies laid in the sand.  A person tripped and another went to catch them.

_Flash._

The dark form was taking shape.

 _Flash_.

The form wasn't a wave.

Two blue eyes opened, glowing in the sky high above him.  Ai craned his neck until he was staring straight up, the wind and sea spray whipping at his skin.  The form was monstrous, larger than life, so immensely gigantic, Ai felt a wave of vertigo.  It was like he was floating through space, not knowing which way was up or down.  The only thing that grounded him was the sand beneath his hands and knees.

Towering over him and the entire world was a god, rising to its full height out of the ocean.

Hands grappled at his shirt and Ai turned only to choke in horror.  A person clutched his sleeve but their eyes were black, ragged holes, blood cascading down their face.  A flash of lighting graced Ai with the image of another person's eyes exploding out of their heads as they stared up at the beast, and the beach went dark before the person hit the ground.  He may have screamed, he may have cried out.  But all he could feel was the never ending howling of the storm and the overwhelming, crushing presence of the figure above him.

Turquoise light flooded  the space around him and Ai looked up to the looming figure, staring down directly at him with solid, blue eyes.  A giant hand came crashing down onto the beach to his right, destroying the rock wall Ai was sitting on only moments before.  The force of the impact threw him onto his side and he curled into himself, barely aware of the rock fragments pelting his back.  Another crash to his left tossed his body into the air like a ragdoll, knocking the wind out of him when he landed.  Dazed and disoriented, Ai blinked, trying to regain his senses.

Framing him on either side was the figure's arms, each larger than any skyscraper Ai had seen.  The figure's fingers destroyed the beach, clawing at the earth and leaving crevices in their wake.  Heat blew over him, blowing his hair back and pushing him into the sand with its force.  Ai tried to move but his body was paralyzed, numb, unwilling.  A high pitched screeching pierced through him, slicing through his body like razors and he convulsed, unable to handle the pain.  The glowing blue eyes above him doubled and blurred, dancing in his vision as he slowly let go, his eyes crossing and body going limp.  The world slowly went black, slowly went silent.  The only thing that remained as Ai slipped away was the high pitched sound, which he vaguely recognized as a wailing voice.  Almost songlike.

Almost familiar.

The last thing he remembered before passing out completely was the voice, repeating its strange dialect.  Repeating and repeating, the same pattern over and over until there was nothing but a resonating, overbearing mantra in his head reechoing in a language he understood.

_I found you, my love._

_I found you._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the weirdest fucking fic I've ever written. It can't even really be considered sou/ai or even a pairing at all.  
> Whatever.

_I've been here before._

Ai felt he was in a dream.  Like he had no body, no physical form to case his thoughts, to contain his being.  All he had was his consciousness and a sense of awareness, although how he perceived all of this made his mind fuzzy.

Perhaps he was sleeping, he passed out, hadn't he?  After a storm, a giant... A giant _what_? But still...

_I've been here before._

Where was here?  Ai couldn't tell what _here_ even was.  _Here_ wasn't anything.

_So, you remember?_

That startled Ai, because _that_ was not his voice.

"Remember what?"  Ai spoke aloud, although he didn't feel his mouth.  Dreams could be weird.

_That you've been here before._

The voice was deep, loud, inside of him, coming from everywhere, coming from nowhere.

"Ah, um, where exactly am I?"

_You are at the beginning._

That didn't clear _anything_ up at all.  "The beginning of what?"

_Where your soul took form._

"My... soul?"

_Souls are formed.  They are not created, nor can they be destroyed.  This is where yours was formed.  The most precious soul.  Stardust and energy from black holes, churning magma and boiling tidal pools, wavelengths of light that have traveled across millions of universes.  By my hand, you came together, my love, my most precious soul._

"You made me?" Ai's mind strained, trying to keep up with this strange conversation, this strange dream that felt too real to be a dream, too familiar to be a product of his subconscious.

_No, nothing is made.  Everything already exists.  You have always existed, only in a different form.  I simply guided you to come together, to become you.  And then I lost you._

"...Lost..."

Ai whispered out the word, feather light, letting it dissolve in the space around him. That's a word he's come to identify with.  That's a word he's accepted as part of his character, a part of his life.  No matter where Ai went, he was lost.  That was simply who he was.

_Souls have a tendency to travel, to move around.  They can't stay in one place.  You moved on, not by choice, from one plane of existence to the next.  The most precious soul to have ever been in my presence, gone, zipping from vessel to vessel, getting pushed and pulled, never still.  I've been searching for you and now I've found you._

"Found."

His composure crumbled.  Waves of déjà vu washed over him, and he caught glimpses, little bursts of familiarity, small windows of understanding that passed too quickly for Ai to grasp.  Too quickly to string them together into a coherent timeline of events, of memories.  But what he did retain felt good, felt whole, felt the way he did back then.  Back then... _Back when?_

_Back when you were mine._

This could be why he never felt like he belonged.  Because he was lost.  To think he lived different lives, in different worlds-- "Wait, did you say I was in different planes of existence?"

_Naturally.  Did you think your soul only stayed on the earth?  Did you think your soul was younger than the earth?_

"Well, y-yes?  The earth is all I know, that's where I was born, that's where I live.  The earth is so old!"

_You know so much more than the earth, Love, and you are so much older than the earth's current form.  Everything has always existed, only in a different form.  Once the soul is free from a body, the soul remembers all.  But the soul doesn't like to float in limbo, the soul seeks out vessels, giving the vessels life, meaning, but at the cost of temporary amnesia due to rebirth. Bodies are fickle things, they are too weak to handle the knowledge that the soul contains, so the soul hides it away, for the sake of self preservation._

Ai was silent, letting that sink in.  Philosophy was never an interest of his, questioning his existence and the meaning of life always made his head spin.  However, this voice delivered these statements as pure, solid facts.  Was this voice his own?  A facet of himself that laid dormant all his life ( _lives_ )?

"...Who are you?"

_I am a form that has always existed as such, I never change, for I transcend universes and all planes of existence.  I am the overseer, the guidance, the physics.  I have always been, and always will be._

"Are you... Are you a god?"

_You could call me that._

"Why did you want to find me?!"  This dream was beginning to feel less like a dream, and more of an experience.  Was he dead?  Or maybe he was in a trance.  He remembered learning about priest and priestesses who could reach higher levels, reach an elevated state of consciousness.  But doubt crept in at the edges of his thought process, like ink crawling across fibrous paper.  What a ridiculous notion, a _god_ seeking out someone like himself, a nobody.  A nobody who has never felt like he belonged, like he wasn't supposed to have his current life.  He must be dead or hit his head too hard in the storm. (Or whatever it was.)

_Because, you are mine, Love.  You are the most precious soul because you were formed with love.  And I found you, I found you, I found you._

Darkness, sparks, burning and changing states.  Bright light and crushing energy.  Mixing together, stirring and swirling, connections forming, drawn together like two water droplets melting into one.  Not resisting the pull and feeling _so ecstatic_.  Bursting with euphoria, becoming, knowing.  Opening a metaphysical eye and seeing, _being_.

"I've been here before."

Two blue eyes staring down at him.  A song.  Repeating, Repeating.  _So in love._

_Of course._

Oh, how strange it was to remember something from a time when you weren't human!

"Why... Why is my mind being so cruel to me... Coming up with thoughts of a god loving me... Finding me... I must be so pathetic and desperate.  I want to wake up."

_I can't let you go, not again._

"I want to wake up!"

_Please, Love, I can't lose you again. Human lives are so short._

"Let me wake up!


	3. Chapter 3

Ai gasped awake with a splutter of seawater spraying past his lips.  His throat burned and his head pounded, and as his vision focused, the first thing he noticed was sunlight, dancing through leaves of trees, spotted and warm on his face.  The second thing he noticed was that he could hear the ocean far below him, which he found disorienting.  Slowly, he sat up, clutching at his forehead as he took in his surroundings, blinking away his confusion and grogginess.  He laid upon a flat expanse of stone, smooth and cold under his touch.  Ai ran his palm over it and furrowed his brow, feeling like he's felt the sensation before.  A sharp spike of pain tore through his head and he winced, holding his head in his hands until it passed.  There were trees surrounding him on three sides, and a ledge on the fourth giving him a view of the ocean expanding out endlessly.  He was perched high on a cliff it seemed, and as he looked around, the feeling of déjà vu from his dream grew, until finally he shook his head and it passed.  No, he was sure he has never been here before, he would have certainly remembered such a place.  ...Right?  Although after his dream  of a giant coming out of the ocean and the disembodied conversation about his soul, Ai wasn't so sure of anything anymore.

The stone slab he sat upon was large enough that he could lay across it without touching the edges, although it was cracked in a few places and weathered, half buried in others, revealing that the stone must have been here a long time.  The closer Ai looked, the more he discovered.  Strange grooves lined the stone's edges, so eroded that they almost weren't noticeable, and as Ai rain his fingers along them he realized they weren't a decorative pattern, they were varied, they were hand carved.  They were characters of a language he didn't understand. He squinted. Even if he _could_ recognize a familiar character it would be impossible to make any sense of it since it was too ruined to read.

_I must be at an alter?_

The third and last thing Ai noticed was the man sitting at the edge opposite the ledge.  Ai jumped, startled, because he was certain the man wasn't there moments before, and Ai didn't hear anyone walk up to him.

"Oh, um. I'm sorry..."  He wasn't sure what to say.  The man sat with his legs crossed and back pin straight and didn't so much as blink in response.  Ai rubbed the back of his neck nervously.  "Um, I'm not really sure where I am.  Do you know where we are?"  The man didn't answer, he only continued to watch him.  "Um... There was a storm, or something.  In my hometown... Right outside of Samezuka.  There was... Ah, never mind, it didn't make much sense, I'm pretty sure I had a dream.  But you must've heard the storm, right?  We can't be that far from there...?"

Ai trailed off and ducked his head, feeling awkward.  The man was wearing a style of kimono Ai had never seen before in any festivals he's been to or TV show he's watched.  Now that Ai looked at him, he couldn't place the man's age.  He looked young enough to be close to Ai's, but was muscular and big enough to be full grown.  Light blue markings twisted out from under the man's dark hair and trailed along his face symmetrically. Ai followed the markings, dots and lines and swirls, down the man's neck under his robe and back out to his hands.  He met the man's eyes and realized his eyes were a similar blue to his own, a similar turquoise...

Ai looked away shyly.  "Well, um, I'm gonna go and try to find my way back..." Ai made to stand up.

"Aiichirou."

Ai froze halfway to a standing position.  "U-um."

"Aiichirou.  Please don't leave."  The man's voice...

"I have to find my way home, um, before my parents worry." Not that Ai believed his parents would, but this man didn't have to know that.

"Please."

Ai sat back down.  "Who are you?"

The man tilted his head.  "Are we going to have this conversation again?"

"W-what?"  His head felt like it was going to explode.  He really wish he had some pain killers on hand.

"Human lives are so short.  I don't want to waste it repeating myself."

Ai rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes.  "What do you mean?"

_"I finally found you."_

Ai stopped rubbing his eyes and paused, frozen to the spot.  "The dream... The giant... T-the.  You're.  Who are you!"  Ai slammed his hands on the stone, stinging his palms.

The man furrowed his brow and when he spoke his voice was louder, deeper, more desperate.  Laced with noises that weren't Ai's language, foreign, otherworldly, sounds bleeding into each syllable.  "I am your home."

"My _what?!_   I'm sorry, but this needs to stop, I can _not_ believe that a god, or whatever you are--"

_Enough._

Ai clamped his hands around his head, grinding his teeth as the voice ripped through his brain.

_I can't hold this form for much longer._

As the voice continued to permeate through his skull, the man flickered, as if he were a hologram, an illusion.  He would be there one second, gone the next, only to return just as quickly.  His body would change and distort.  Split second images of something dark, something huge, something incomprehensible would flash by, making Ai blink his eyes in frustration.

_You are no longer lost, but human lives are short, we don't have time.  Come to me._

"Come... To you?"

The man held out his hand.  "Come to me."

Ai stared at the man's hand for a handful of seconds before looking into the man's eyes.  Turquoise...

"I've..."

"You've been here before."

Ai nodded his head and crawled towards the man, _god_ , and reached out slowly.  Their fingers brushed and Ai gasped.  "You..."  An inexplicable sensation prickled in Ai's fingertips and slowly spread up his arm.  As if the atoms holding him together were shifting, altering, changing.  Pulling.  Ai gave in and let the sensation lead him, closer, closer into the god's arms.  His home.  "You found me."

"At long last."

"It's weird... It really feels like I've known you all my life.  But I also feel like I'm meeting you for the first time."

The god caressed Ai's hair.  "You've known me since the beginning, my Love."

"When you formed my soul?"

The god nodded.  "I have to say, this is a very fitting vessel for you.  I'm glad you're not a plant, or a microorganism.  This body matches your soul well."

Ai stared at the god.  "Did... You just compliment my body?  This is weird!"  Ai clutched the side of his head and buried his face in the god's chest.  He didn't feel fabric or a body underneath, no, he felt a sensation, creeping into his skin, pulling, tugging, caressing, as if he submerged his face in water and a part of him he never knew existed was melting out of him.

And he was in that space again, the _beginning_ , pure and nonhuman, unrestricted by a body.   _Open_.  His past lives passed before him, memories exploding inside him at a rate that seemed impossible to comprehend.  But he retained it all, every life, every place, every other soul he's ever met.

This was his soul laid bare; and at its core, he was empty.

Ai pulled his head out of the god's chest, but in his human form he was blinded, pain searing hot and deep.  He screamed.  He screamed as he clawed at his face, his bloodied eye sockets.  Screamed as his human body couldn't contain him, his lives, his soul.

_Love, come to me._

Ai could only scream, his throat on fire, scream over and over _why am I empty?_

Hands gripped his face, hands that flickered in an out of existence, hands that weren't corporal, hands that guided him.

_Why must you be in such a mortal form... What a shame it is for a god to fall in love._

Ai was being pulled back, back to the beginning, only this time he was a storm, a whirlwind of energy.  He was on the brink of _something_ and he was losing control.

_Your soul is about to leave your body, your vessel is dying.  Let go of that life, it is as irrelevant as all the others._

Ai panicked.  His soul spoke: _No, no then I'll be lost again. I hate the emptiness, I hate the hollowness! My next life will be no different, just as awful and meaningless.  Make it end, please!_   He reached out for the god.  Reached for the blue glowing eyes.  The only thing that felt right, the only thing that could complete him.  _Please don't lose me, don't let me go!_

Hands guided him, once again.  The god's voice boomed.  _I am a vessel that will never expel your soul, I transcend the universes and all concepts.  Stay inside, with me, forever._

Ai felt himself slipping away.  His life, his name, all his past lives, all his past names, sliding out from in between his fingers.  Fingers that were dissolving into thin air.  He was dying, dying, dying and in his last moments all his emptiness was being filled, overwhelmed, with love.

And then there was nothing.

* * *

The god sighed.  At long last, he could rest.

Deep inside of him, in a space that had been waiting, his Love lay, reborn.

Souls were such needy things, reincarnation forcing them into a cycle of rebirth.  But the god would nurture the soul as it grew into its new vessel, as it grew into the god itself.

Finally.

_Finally._

They were whole and his most precious soul would never again be lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed.... fuckin weird fic.. what did I even write.

**Author's Note:**

> shanks for reading


End file.
